This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(a) on Patent Application No. 2009-170056 filed in Japan on Jul. 21, 2009, and Patent Application No. 2009-173646 filed in Japan on Jul. 24, 2009, the entire contents of which are herein incorporated by reference.
The present invention relates to an image forming system constituted by an image forming apparatus that performs an image forming process, such as a copier, a printer or a facsimile machine, for example, and an air cleaning apparatus.
In recent years, image forming apparatuses using an electrophotographic system, which enabled image forming, such as copiers, printers and facsimile machines, have been developed. Image forming apparatuses perform a so-called image forming process on recording paper that, for example, involves forming an electrostatic latent image on the surface of a photosensitive drum, developing the electrostatic latent image using toner to form a toner image on the surface of the photosensitive drum, transferring this toner image from the photosensitive drum to recording paper, and applying heat and pressure to this recording paper to fix the toner image to the recording paper.
While such image forming apparatuses are typically installed in a room such as an office, invisible fine particles, fumes and the like may occur with these image forming apparatuses during the image forming process on recording paper, and these may be discharged into the room from the image forming apparatus.
Also, in a room such as an office in which an image forming apparatus is installed, fine particles invisible to the eye such as house dust, fumes and the like typically occur for various reasons.
In view of this, air cleaning apparatuses have been proposed as apparatuses that eliminate these fine particles such as house dust, fumes and the like in a room (e.g., see JP 2002-58731A). The air cleaning apparatus disclosed in JP 2002-58731A simultaneously generates positive and negative ions, and effectively eliminates airborne bacteria in the air using the positive and negative ions.
Providing such an air cleaning apparatus in a room where an image forming apparatus is installed enables invisible fine particles, fumes and the like discharged into the room from the image forming apparatus to be removed.
Incidentally, when power supply to an image forming apparatus has been turned on and the image forming apparatus is operational, the person using this image forming apparatus is typically present in the room or the like where the image forming apparatus is installed.
For this reason, purifying the air in the room is thus preferable when the image forming apparatus is operational, in order to remove invisible fine particles, fumes and the like discharged into the room from the image forming apparatus. Therefore, it makes sense to turn on power supply to the air cleaning apparatus in the room or the like where the image forming apparatus is installed and clean the air.
On the other hand, power supply to the image forming apparatus will have been turned off and the image forming apparatus will be nonoperational at times such as knock-off time when people leave the room or the like where the image forming apparatus is installed. Thus, when the image forming apparatus is nonoperational, power supply to the air cleaning apparatus may be turned off, given that there will be few invisible fine particles, fumes or the like discharged into the room from the image forming apparatus, as well as there being nobody in the room.
Thus, by operating the image forming apparatus and the air cleaning apparatus so that they cooperate with each other, the environment around the image forming apparatus, such as the room or the like where the image forming apparatus is installed, can be effectively kept clean, while suppressing power consumption.
However, the image forming apparatus and the air cleaning apparatus are completely separate apparatuses, and ON/OFF control of power supplied to the image forming apparatus and ON/OFF control of power supplied to the air cleaning apparatus are mutually independent and performed individually.
Therefore, in order to solve the problem, an object of the present invention is to provide an image forming system capable of effectively maintaining the environment around the image forming apparatus, such as the room or the like where the image forming apparatus is installed, in a clean state, while suppressing power consumption, by automatically causing the image forming apparatus and the air cleaning apparatus to cooperate.